Doris Lessing
1962
Around 640 pages
A book about color coded notebooks is right up my alley, but I actually didn't enjoy this novel too much. My distaste for post-modernism is well-documented already, but we can add another entry to the pile.
Anna Wulf recorded her life into four notebooks: red for her experience as a Communist, yellow for her doomed love affair, black for her time in Southern Rhodesia, and blue for her inner thoughts. She hopes to combine all the stories into a fifth, golden notebook. It's an intentionally fragmented story that I had a hard time getting a grip on.
Which was likely the point, she wanted to tell the story in a non linear way, which is always a much more real way of capturing the nature of memories. But I liked the premise more than the execution, which is typical of my relationship with Doris.
I might have appreciated this if it was bit shorter, but she dragged out longer than I thought was necessary. Could have lived without this one.
RATING: ***--
Interesting Facts:
Interesting Facts:
In 2005, TIME magazine called The Golden Notebook one of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923.
UP NEXT: The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard
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